


Break Down Right + Wrong

by matchsticks_p (matchsticks)



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Prison, M/M, Plot Twist, Rimming, much longer and much more explicit sex than I normally write, warning for an instance of a prison-typical threat of sexual violence (that doesn't happen)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:06:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2495525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchsticks/pseuds/matchsticks_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People, from the freshest of fish to the oldest of lifers, are always trying to ask Oliver if he knows <i>that guy</i> in Cell Block J. He always says no. He keeps his head down. He's doing as he's told.</p><p>(Written to fulfill this prompt: "dark and fun prison!AU please!")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break Down Right + Wrong

Oliver always tries to stay by the walls or the fences—the outskirts—whenever he has to mingle with the general population.

He gets the impression that a lot of guys come in here already having fully decided on the kind of prison persona they want to adopt. A leader, a follower, a street-wise smart aleck who always pulls fast ones on the guards, whatever. All Oliver wants to be is unnoticed. Ideally, if or when he ever gets out of here, no one will even register his absence or remember his presence.

He does his assigned jobs with his eyes glued to the toes of his own canvas shoes. At mealtimes, he never sits with the same group so as to not forge any connections to anybody. He always chooses the emptiest table to eat at, silently. As soon as his last bite is finished, he gets up and walks away. He never utters a single word of idle chat.

And when people ask him if he knows _the guy_ in Cell Block J, he rushes past them like he didn't hear them at all.

People, from the freshest of fish to the oldest of lifers, are always trying to ask Oliver if he knows _that guy_ in Cell Block J. He generally tries to ignore them until they give up and go away. If they're persistent, he always gives the same response: "I have no clue who or what you're talking about."

He keeps his head down. He's doing as he's told. 

* * *

A new tough joins the block, covered in tattoos and scars and anxious bravado. He's clearly decided that he wants his prison persona to be dangerous and cool, untouchable. Oliver, with his head down and his nose stubbornly out of everyone's business, doesn't really notice him until the guy has him cornered in the yard one day.

Oliver is aware that he looks for all the world like an unprotected bitch, sweet and ripe for the picking. He keeps his eyes down and trusts in his rational inner voice that says there are too many eyes and too many guards out here in the open for the new tough to do anything.

The new tough tries, anyway.

He manages to get Oliver bent over a weightlifting bench, a thick thigh wedged between his legs, fingers thrusting up his shirt, before someone raises a ruckus and three guards tear them apart.

Oliver mumbles that he's fine because someone asks, but that's all he has to say to anyone about it before he keeps his mouth shut as usual and walks away. 

It's not the worst thing that's ever happened to him, and he doesn't think about it much after a few days.

It only takes a few more days for the new tough to get whisked off to solitary for having contraband in his cell. Apparently they found a shank hidden underneath his mattress, and a few inmates voluntarily testify that they heard he was planning to use it on a guard. He's probably going to disappear for a long, long time. 

If rumours float around that the guy in Cell Block J had something to do with the newbie's evaporation from the gen pop, Oliver doesn't hear them.

* * *

A hand grips Oliver around the forearm, just above the wrist, and yanks him into a side door in the laundry room.

Before he has the chance to say anything or even make any sort of surprised noise, a warm mouth covers his. The kiss lasts for ages, longer than he really has the breath for, and he has to reach out to steady himself on the other man's shoulders when he finally pulls away, dizzy from the lack of oxygen.

"Connor," he gasps, the one word he'll never say when he's out there alone.

"We have half an hour," Connor replies.

In the dim light leaking into the supply closet around the barely cracked open door, Oliver can just barely make out the outlines of Connor's features. His unshaven face looks rougher, older—he's let his stubble grow too long to be called stubble anymore. "How'd you get us so much time?"

In prison, time is a precious commodity. A half hour guaranteed with no other inmates or guards in sight is almost unheard of. But of course Connor has his ways. Connor practically _runs_ Cell Block J by now. 

"What did I tell you about not asking any questions about what I do?" Connor asks, but gently, teasingly. He even chucks Oliver under the chin as he says it.

"The less I know, the safer I am," Oliver repeats dutifully.

"Good." Connor's fingers shift to tilt Oliver's face down just as he likes it and they kiss again, languidly, as though they weren't on borrowed time.

"Has anyone else been giving you trouble?"

"Nope."

"And have you mentioned me to anybody at all?"

"Who the hell is Connor Walsh? Never heard of him. What a weird name, who even names their kid Connor? I don't even know where Cell Block J is, I thought this place only went up to H," Oliver says, and gets a quick nip on the shoulder for being cheeky. The teeth marks might become bruises, later, but it's just low enough for his sleeve to cover because Connor is meticulous. Connor has everything all figured out. Or that's what he likes Oliver to think, anyway, and if it makes him happy then what the hell, Oliver will think it.

Despite all of the forbidden touching they should really be making up for, Connor has the presence of mind to update him first. Conspiracy to commit murder isn't even close to being the most difficult charge Annalise Keating has managed to get overturned. She's confident she can do it, and even beyond his faith in her almost preternatural abilities, Connor is confident that Wes, Michaela, Laurel, and the other one will get them out. The particular people interested in keeping them in here are making it a slightly more difficult task than usual, but it was only a matter of time, and patience. And survival. "The fewer people who know who you are or what you're in for, the better," he reiterates, like Oliver hasn't been told seven million times.

"I know, I know. I've been careful, trust me. Nobody knows who I am."

"I do."

Oliver laughs, not because he's amused but just to make a noise. "Shut up," he says, and grabs Connor by the back of the head so their mouths can stop being so abominably apart.

Everything smells like cheap laundry detergent in this closet they've staked out, stacked wall-to-wall with boxes of powdered soap. With Connor's hand down the front of his pants, then his underwear, Oliver wonders if he should be concerned about developing a Pavlovian reaction to this scent. It would be so inconvenient if he got a boner every time he smelled clean sheets from now on.

They don't have condoms, of course. It's prison, they never do. But Connor's creative, and even when they were on the outside he had always been more interested in sticking his tongue in there than anything else. Oliver had teased him about it, once. "Addicted to eating ass," was what he'd accused Connor of, and that uncharacteristic dirty talk had just gotten Connor's eyes to shine even brighter with lust before he dove right back in.

It's too dark in this closet to see Connor's eyes now, but Oliver can imagine based on plenty of experience. He tries to keep his moans quiet, since he has no idea how Connor's keeping the area empty. If he's got lookouts, then they might be able to hear them, and Oliver doesn't want anyone to hear. This is all just for them, and he's so jealous of what's rightfully his that he doesn't want to share a single sound with anyone else. It gets increasingly hard to stay quiet, though, when Connor has him laid out just as open as he used to do in a proper bed. 

With two fingers up Oliver and his lips slick with spit, Connor is a sight to behold. When he lets Oliver come, he swallows every drop. 

It takes a few moments for Oliver to recover his senses, but as soon as he's able he's moving to get down on his knees, eager to return the favour. Connor stops him before he lands. "Hang on a second, the floor's cold," he says, when he was just right there on the cold hard floor himself mere minutes ago. 

Connor goes to rummage around the back shelves, where there are bins for collecting discarded laundry, and succeeds in finding a threadbare blanket full of holes. Oliver watches him fold it into a thick, plush square and lay it down on the floor, emotions that can't be named welling up in his chest.

In lieu of expressing those feelings verbally, Oliver sinks to his knees and takes Connor's cock all the way down his throat. From the way Connor's gasping, he figures it gets the point across just as well. 

He lets Connor fuck his face—encourages it, even, by pulling him forward by the ass and urging him to thrust, humming in approval when he does. It's too bad they're both conscious that they have limited time alone, that it's running out and they can't keep going at this for hours. Oliver thinks that's got to be one of the first things they do if or when they get out. Just get a room and spend hours and hours touching each other, nonstop, unhurried.

He tells Connor about that fantasy after he's finished, and they're both just drinking each other in in their last few minutes together before another agonizing spell of living like the other doesn't exist. 

"Don't say _if_ or when," Connor rebukes. "It's just when."

Oliver understands that Connor believes it, and sure, Oliver can believe that Connor's powerful friends won't let him down. But he has to take it on blind faith that they have any interest in getting Oliver out along with him. All he has to go on is Connor's certainty. Connor's word.

He's never asked Connor if he picked out a prison persona before he arrived here, like so many other guys do. Maybe he did, or maybe he didn’t need to. He's taken to prison like a duck takes to water, or more accurately, like Connor takes to everything: he's walked in, assessed the situation, and decided that he would be best suited to run it. 

Oliver shakes his head at him and wonders how he ever ended up throwing his lot in with this man. But he suspects they both already know the answer to that. 

Someone's going to discreetly knock on the door soon and it'll be their two-minute warning. Oliver leans over and presses a kiss not to Connor's lips but to his nose, just to watch him wrinkle it.

"Keep doing as I tell you," Connor says, the firmness of his commands improbably at odds with the ridiculously adorable thing he's still doing with his nose. "Keep trusting me."

Oliver does.

**Author's Note:**

> Endnotes: All of my "knowledge" of American prisons comes from HBO's _Oz_ , so please forgive the incredibly stupid liberties I've taken. Please take this as a prison scenario fantasy rather than anything having to do with the actual penal system. And I'm still taking prompts here at [my tumblr](http://riseagainphoenix.tumblr.com/ask) if you'd like to send requests, although as usual I reserve the right to be a complete failure at answering any (all??) of them.


End file.
